The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1887-07-16
FACTS ABOUT PAPER.
Origin and Growth OF One of the World's
Most Important Industries.


Most Important industries.
The Chinese are credited with being
the first to reduce vegetable matter to
.he fiber and web which constitute
modern paper. According to Gibbon,
the art of manufacture from this mate
rial was introduced from China into
Samarcand, city of Asia Minor, in
651. Here the new method soon took
shape and modern paper-making be-
came quite an industry in the city. In
704 the Saraccns, fierce, warlike tribe
Of Arabs. captured the city and learned
the art of paper-making, which they in
troduced into Mecca three years later.
In I'll they made descent on Spain,
making themselves masters OF that
country, and established paper-making
upon good footing there. By this
time raw cotton had become the chief
material of manufacture. During the
reign Of the Saracens and Moors in
Spain the industry fourished and pa
per became the universal writing ma
terial. The Spanish introduced cotton
rags in 1885 as material of manufact-
ure, and soon afterward linen rags.
This was probably the first use of rags
in paper-making.
Paper can now be made from almost
any fibrous substance, but the chief ma
terial of manufacture still remains rags,
straw, old paper, cotton waste, manila,
jute, esparto grass, wood pulp and
chemicals. The introduction of wood
pulp into paper-making is the most i'm
portant improvement made in the
manufacture within the last half-cent-
ury, for without it the immense editions
of the great dailies would be impossible,
and that wonderful piece of mechanism
and ingenuity, the web perfecting or
"lightning" press, a dead letter. Paper
made entirely from rags does not take
as kindly to printers ink as is desirable
and has tendency to clog the type,
necessitating frequent stoppages Of the
press to wash off the clogging in run
ming off q large edition. Paper con-
tanning wood pulp has natural affinity
to printers ink and receives the inn
preston almost instantaneously, with
out the least soiling or clogging Of the
type or stereotype plate.
Papyrus, by which name paper was
first known, was made by the Egyp-
tians thousands of years before the
Christian era. There is one specimen
of the paper preserved at Paris con-
tanning poem on one of the Kings of
the fifth Egyptian dynasty which must
have been written at least two thou
sand years before Christ. The manu-
facture of papyrus was at one time q
great industry among the Egyptians.
They had the exclusive monopoly
throughout the entire East, and also
among the Greeks and Romans and
other countries of the West. 1t con-
tinued to be the chief writing-material
down to the beginning of the eighth
century, when the era of modern paper
dawned.
There is hardly any commodity or
article of manufacture that is used in II
greater number of things than paper.
In addition to the common run of things
into which it enters, it is now used in
this country in making water-pails,
wash-tubs, papier mache, sheathing for
vessels, car-wheels, and innumerable
other things. In England they have
used it for water-pipes and tanks, and
they say that it wards off frost better
| than lead or iron. The Chinese and
japanese make clothing, hats, UNI
brellas, napkins, handkerchiefs, twine,
| hor f,, tt,,r ,,t nf
The United States makes consider
ably more than half the entire paper
supply of the whole globe Massachu-
setts leads all the other States in the
Union in the manufacture of both writ
ing and printing papers. In fact, very
little writing paper is made in the
United States outside of Massachusetts,.
New York takes the lead in wrapping
and wall papers, and is closing up to
the heels of Massachusetts in printing
papers. Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maine,
Connecticut and Delaware are we'll up
in printing-papers, while Vermont
comes out best in tissue-paper.
During the fourteenth century the art
of manufacture became introduced into
most countries of Europe, and made
rapid progress in some of them, notably
France, Holland and Genoa. Most
pupal bulls of the eighth century were
written on cotton paper. The frag-
ments of st. Marks gospel preserved
at Venice have been claimed to be writ
ten on both cotton and linen paper, but
neither claim is correct, for they are
| raallv written ON skins IL GMicnno Mems